Microsoft Office Keyboard
See it at Amazon.com for $39.99Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First
(5 out of 5)What a bunch of great ideas. Very Helpful!!
I had been using the Microsoft Internet Keyboard for several years. I enjoyed that keyboard but I never quite felt the keyboard was designed for the way I work. The Office Keyboard, however, very well may be as good as a keyboard gets.
The keys have a nice soft touch, but that's just the beginning. The best feature is the scroll button on the left. Not only has it sped up my internet surfing, its functionality has proven itself in almost all of my daily computing experience. It has a much looser scroll than I have found in a mouse so one can literally ZIP to the end of any page or document. Additionally, its location is near enough to the CTRL button to press CTRL with your thumb and scroll up and down with your finger, which zooms in and out in many programs.
The cut/copy/paste buttons have proven themselves very helpful. No more accidentally striking CTRL+C when I want to paste something! The application scroll buttons also nicely replace and enhance what I used to use CTRL+TAB to do.
Some reviewers poo-poo the enhanced F key functions. With the latest Intellitype Pro software, I have found that I can customize them very easily and set their functions to the tasks I use most frequently. (The defaults, however, were nicely chosen and I have found rare occasion to change them.) I am constantly opening, closing, and saving documents. I can now do this quickly without moving my mouse. Most of the button also work in non-Microsoft programs as well.
Contrary to others, I have not found that the enlarged delete button to be a problem. In fact, I enjoy the absence of the Insert button that I erroneously frequented prior to using the Office Keyboard.
Although this review has been overwhelmingly positive, I do not mean to presume that everyone will love this keyboard as soon as they take it out of the box. I am very picky about keyboards and usually get attached to ones I've used for a long time-vocational hazard, I guess. But I liked the philosophy of this keyboard, and although it took a while for me to get used to utilizing my new keyboard to its fullest, within two weeks of daily use this keyboard's functionality revolutionized my computing experience. This one is a keeper.
(4 out of 5)Pretty Nifty Keyboard from a "Keyboard Picky" User.
First of all, let me say that I am very picky about keyboards. I like a tactile feel and even like a mechanical key-click. This puts me in the minority, I know. Having said that, though, I admit to really liking this Microsoft Office keyboard (for the most part). The alpha section feels really nice. It's high-quality, and even though it's a bit soft for my touch, the keys have a very positive feel to them. I wouldn't call it mushy.
I like the roller bar to the left, which lets you scroll up and down the way a wheel mouse typically does. I also like having "Back" and "Forward" buttons over there on the left side. I haven't gotten the knack for using the "Cut," "Copy," and "Paste" buttons yet, however.
The extra buttons across the top are very handy... especially useful is the "Mail" button, which (on my machine) brings up Outlook Express.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with this product. Unlike the other reviewer, however, I have to say I DON'T like the oversized delete key. It makes that whole section of the keyboard feel strange and unnatural to me. (Take a close look at the section of the keyboard where the "Home," "End," and "Page Up" "Page Down" keys are located and you'll see what I'm talking about.) Make sure you are willing to adjust to this before you purchase this keyboard.
Additionally, I would have appreciated some USB ports. A friend of mine got the Microsoft Internet keyboard, and if I had it to do over again, so would I.
Still, if you're heavy into MS Office... this is the one to beat!
I give it 4 stars... not 5, but only because of that "Delete" key weirdness. Overall, it's a dandy!
(2 out of 5)What were MS thinking? I'm left scratching my head..
A few other reviews have pointed out how important your keyboard is and I wholeheartedly agree. Keyboard & mouse form the majority of your interaction with your PC and it makes sense that they're spot-on. And since it's not exactly a "budget" item, from not exactly a "budget" brand, we're expecting a quality performance - right?
Well, this seems to be one of those occasions where some of MS's decisions seem to go against the rules of what Human Computer Interaction & Ergonomics have to teach us.
On the positive side, the keyboard mechanism itself is good - reminiscent of good cherry keyboards of yesteryear. However, despite the large footprint (thanks mainly to the 3" wrist rest that extends across the bottom and up the left hand edge) it's actually a compact keyboard... verging on cramped. Shame, that's a pretty major problem for a keyboard to have.
Yes, the "USP" is that they've introduced extra functionality - from extra buttons across the top (volume, launch word, excel etc.) to a roller unit with buttons on the left of the keyboard that allows you to scroll, cut, copy, paste, etc. Needless to say, you can configure and re-configure the buttons to suit your taste but most people will never delve this far and just accept it on default settings. And every MS office keybie user I know agrees with me. So why isn't it "right" out of the box?
Now, I could whine about the fact that the right-hand windows key is gone (probably because they couldn't afford the space - the distance betwen the right hand CTRL key and the left hand cursor key is the smallest of any keyboard I can remember), or I could moan about what they've done to the delete key - it's all very well they've made it double height but why did insert have to go far, far away? Or how the End key is where you'd expect pg up to be (they put an almost opposite function in it's place - nice design decision!) And I could bemoan the fact that, in default config, the function keys (e.g. alt+F4) don't do what you'd expect them to. For no good reason (they've mapped a specific Close key to F6, why not F4 where everyone's expecting it?) Crazy!
But the truth is, all of these foibles could be learned and worked around. But I want to make this point: you *can't* go drastically re-arranging keys on a keyboard like this. Why? Because you will be LOST if you have to use another (non-rearranged) keyboard again. So, you have to decide whether the extra functions here are worth having, versus learning a keyboard that may make using a normal keyboard a pain.
And as far as I'm concerned, the answer is an emphatic NO. Especially as logitech offer a keyboard with similar functionality, nice typing action and NO nasty unnecessary key re-arrangements. Try both and tell me you can honestly see why MS had to mess around with the tried and tested layout?
(4 out of 5)Microsoft has done it again
When one takes into account Microsoft's success with what I consider to be the best mouse in the market out there--the Intelimouse Explorer (and its Wireless cousin)--and then take into account this keyboard, its hard not to get the impression that someone *really* knows what they're doing at Microsoft. This keyboard truly is a wonderfuly keyboard, in my opinion.
First, addressing its status as a Microsoft Office keyboard--You don't really need office to make it useful. Only two permanent buttons deal with office programs, Word and Excel. All the others are general ones (Web, Mail, Calendar, Files, Calc, etc.). Of course, Office benefits quite a bit from this keyboard.
Pros: As another reviewer pointed out, this keyboard is mechanically great. When you type with it the keys hit gently and you don't end up with a typewriter style sound from your keyboard. The wrist rest at the bottom of the keyboard may bother some at first, but I got used to it and think its quite nice, and helps your hands position when typing. The sidepanel is where this keyboard truly shines: an inch scroll wheel added with cut, copy, paste, back, forward, and application buttons (having the same function as ALT-TAB, causing you to switch between programs). All of these can be useful depending on your habits, but personally, I use the scroll and application switching buttons the most, and use the others less frequently.
Cons: OK, there are some downsides to this keyboard, but none of them are too bothersome, and were significant enough to give it a 4 (if only Amazon allowed 4.5... =). First, theres this function thing they have going on with the Function keys. The function keys (F1 - F12) have their normal function, and also have an "enhanced mode", with special Windows functions such as help, new, open, close, reply, fwd, send, spell, save, print, etc. I'm sure that these are useful to some people, but for the past 5 years I've trained myself to use all the shortcuts. And, unfortunately, the keyboard defaults to enhanced mode and when you restart it goes back to enhanced mode as well. What irks me even more is that they didn't have the brains to put at least some of these enhanced keys to correspond to their normal function. Everyone knows what Alt+F4 does, right? Well, do that in enhanced mode and it opens a new window--and add to that that the close button is only two keys down from it. Why not have Close be on the F4 key? The enhanced key thing is a serious problem that Microsoft has to take care of--its not too inconvienet, but I expect better from them.
Two more comments on key placement: there is only one windows key, and its on the left side. This is just me personally, but I've grown quite accustomed to using it on my right hand. Second, and even more of a pain if you switch between computers (and thus keyboards) often. The delete key is huge. Basically, they took the normal 6-key group of Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, etc, and made it 2x3 instead of 3x2, and then they took out the insert key and made the delete key 2 keys long vertically. It takes getting used to, and its a pain when you switch keyboards.
I don't want to stress too much the problems--they really are few, and I'm nitpicking here. It truly is a good keyboard.. Microsoft just needs to fix a few things though.
(5 out of 5)Microsoft Office Keyboard
I have only owned this keyboard for a couple of days and I'm totally awed by its comfort and efficiency. The feel of the keys is excellent, soft but very responsive. I have never been able to type so fast! I think the buttons across the top are very convenient and with my arthritic thumbs I am especially glad to have the buttons for Word, Excel (although I don't have Excel, so it goes to the Works Spreadsheet which suits me perfectly),and so on.
I greatly appreciate the ability to send, forward and reply to e-mail simply by hitting a key. And the Copy/Cut/Paste keys are lifesavers. Anything that helps me minimize mouse use is a major plus. Actually, if I were to set the numeric pad keys for use instead of the mouse I would probably never have to use the mouse at all except for right-clicking.
I really like the big roller on the left of the keyboard for scrolling up and down. My only suggestion for improvement would be to add an equivalent roller for horizontal scrolling.
The installation process was a breeze, and the Help information is clear and easy to use.
I haven't yet needed to change the assignment of any keys; they are set up appropriately for my use, but looking at the instructions which I printed out from the Help it seems to me to be a very easy process.